


Confession and Supplication

by Umbrella_ella



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: F/M, based on a tumblr prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 01:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13284420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbrella_ella/pseuds/Umbrella_ella
Summary: Lucien returns home after he’s been stabbed by Patrick Tyneman’s illegitimate daughter.Jean is not pleased.["actuallylorelaigilmore asked: "Lucien x Jean, 'don’t even think about it.'"]





	Confession and Supplication

Lucien leans into kiss her, then, with his blazer abandoned on the back of the chair and his shirt half undone, but instead, she turns away, refusing to meet his questioning eyes.

“Don’t, Lucien,” her voice is cold, hard, and very unlike her, “Don’t even think about it.”

Her lips tremble, and she quivers from head to toe, and he’s almost afraid that she’ll shake apart if he so much as touches her, but then, she is far from him, standing at the sink, putting as much distance as possible between them.

He hates what he’s done.

“Jeannie, I–”

“No, Lucien, you think you’re worth less somehow, you think you can just do as you please, that you don’t matter to people, but you do!” she’s nearly whispering now, and the venom in her voice would have him cowering if her eyes weren’t so incredibly defeated. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her lips, painted red and begging for a kiss, are turned down in a frown. “I can’t—I thought that perhaps, after everything…”

Her voice is less sure now, and she whispers the last part, and he thinks that perhaps he wasn’t meant to hear that.

Jean scoffs, scrubbing quickly at her cheeks, where a few tears have run down her porcelain cheekbones, sniffling in the looming quiet that seems to press all of the air out of the kitchen. He’s standing there, next to his chair and he’s gripping it tight, as if it’s a lifeline, because truly, it’s the only thing rooting him here, in this spot, because he desperately wants- _needs_ \- to go to her, to hold her and murmur apologies into her chestnut hair, and smell the sweetness of her perfume.

She turns away, sighing in a long, mournful way, and she scrubs at the pan she’s picked up in a fierce way, though to Lucien’s recollection, the pan had done absolutely nothing wrong at all.

“You know,” she says sharply, and the words are glass, cutting through the air, “you matter, Lucien, far more than you think. And I cannot– I _refuse_ to lose you.”

The _too_ , implied, hangs there, in the distance between them, filling the room, pushing in on Lucien and the weight of it is enough to make him understand. She had given up _everything_ , for him, and here he was, charging headfirst into danger.

“I’m—Jean, my love, I am so sorry,” his voice breaks dangerously, as though his heart is bubbling up from his chest, and he means it, just as he always means everything he’s said to her.

He cannot lie, for she is a goddess and he is a sinner, kneeling in a confessional, begging repentance for his sins.

Jean sighs, then, her shoulders sagging with the weight of the worry he has put upon her, and his mind tricks him, whispering insidious things, _you’re not worth it._ But he is, he _must_ be, or so she thinks, because she had stood in front of him only weeks before, so sure and ready and tall, barely trembling at all, ready to put herself in danger, ready to— he swallows the sob that breaks in his throat as he thinks of it— ready to die.

For him.

_Be the best version of Lucien Blake, every day, for her._

Matthew’s advice rings in his ears, and he sees now, how viscerally the pain of just the thought of losing him rockets through Jean, how her spine stiffens as he steps in close. His lips find the soft spot behind her ear, and her hands, always to steady and sure, falter at the touch. Lucien’s hands find her waist unconsciously, the movement so natural and normal between the two, and her skin burns through the fabric of her dress, branding his hands as hers and no one else’s.

“Jean, I promise you that you will not walk this Earth alone, not again, not if you and I are the sole two people in the world. You will not be without me, my darling. I was foolish.”

Jean’s body sinks into his at his words, and this is perhaps the most important promise he’s made to her in all their months of loving each other (though it’d been years, really). This is not the first promise he’s made in her name, consecrating these few words of his onto her skin, his lips brushing her ear, and then her neck, until she shivers in delight. No, this is not the first promise, and most certainly not the last, but even as he holds her, even as he offers this supplication, whatever they face in the future, it is the most important promise.

Jean abandons the dish, soapy hands coming up and around his neck, even as she turns her head into his kisses, and now her eyes are closed, tracks of tears leaving a path for him to kiss away later in the night, when she comes to him with a bottle and a need to be close, as she so often does now.

“Please, Lucien, please don’t make me bury you.”

Lucien’s heart renders at that moment, rent to pieces once more, even as his arms twine around her waist and beckon her impossibly closer.

There’s nothing left to do but kiss her, and that, perhaps, says more than words.


End file.
